Hop on the Bus, Get Schooled on Local Food and Value-Added Production and Processing! Farmers of all experience levels are invited to hop on the bus and gain a better grasp of the opportunities and challenges of our local food systems. The Kansas Beginning Farmer Bus Tour leaves from the Topeka Ramada and winds southward to Parker, KS. Our first stop is Iwig Family Dairy in Tecumseh. They bottle milk and produce butter and ice cream on the farm which they sell at their three retail stops. Next up, we visit the famous Lawrence Farmers Market’s Holiday Market before heading to Ottawa to tour the Bauman’s Butcher Block. The (local) lunch bell rings for us at Princeton’s Brand N Iron. Down in Garnett, we’ll stop in at Cedar Valley Farms’ ANCO Poultry Processing and Bauman’s Farm Feeds, the new non-GMO FeedHub. We’ll wrap up the tour in Parker by visiting Synergistic Acres and Grandview Livestock.

Since 1910, the Iwig family has been raising cows and producing milk for Kansas families. In 2004, Tim and Laurel took the farm to the next level with the opening of its dairy bottling and retail service, providing bottled milk to grocery stores. Iwig Dairy recently shifted marketing strategies, increasing direct sales of its products to consumers with its three retail locations. Products include flavored milks, butter, and ice cream.

The Lawrence Farmers Market is the state’s oldest, continuously operated, producer-only farmers market. With more than 100 vendors, the market runs from April to November. The annual Holiday Farmers Market, held indoors at the Holidome, attracts 1000s of shoppers looking to purchase locally grown foods and hand crafted items.

The Bauman family began its adventure in ag in 2001 when John and Yvonne Bauman purchased 180 acres in Anderson County. Today, they, along with their six children and two daughters-in-law, run an enterprise where they do everything from raise pastured poultry and eggs, beef, and row crops to process a gamut of local ag products. Earlier this year, the family purchased an Ottawa beef plant at auction. Bauman’s Butcher Block processes cattle, hogs, goats and sheep under USDA inspection. Employing “some of the best meat cutters in the state” the Butcher Block specializes in working with direct marketing producers.

Tiny Princeton Kansas is home to the Brand N Iron, a family restaurant that works closely with local farmers and Bauman’s Butcher Block to serve the finest locally-raised meats. Attendees have their choice of a brisket or pulled pork sandwich entree.

Fresh Farm HQ is a newly organized farmer-owned cooperative food hub that will begin serving the Kansas City Metro region in 2016. Tom Buller, one of the founding farmers, will provide a discussion of the history of efforts to bring a food hub to the region and how Fresh Farm HQ plans to help small growers in Kansas and Missouri.

The Bauman family began its adventure in ag in 2001 when John and Yvonne Bauman purchased 180 acres in Anderson County. Today, they, along with their six children and two daughters-in-law, run an enterprise where they do everything from raise pastured poultry and eggs, beef, and row crops to process a gamut of local ag products.Rosanna developed a passion for poultry, later realizing that lack of processing capacity was holding back the growth of local sales. So she got her HACCP and opened ANCO, Kansas’ only on-farm, USDA-inspected poultry processor.The latest Bauman venture is a GMO-free grain FeedHub, Bauman’s Farm Feeds. Winning the 2014 Slow Money BeetCoin Campaign–and a $60k 0% interest loan–will permit local, non-GMO grain markets to grow. “Farmers are willing to raise it, but must be able to get it to the consumers. That infrastructure is totally gone in the grain industry.”

Synergistic Acres’ Jeff and Laura Hamons didn’t grow up on a farm or even have any farmers in their families. Instead, their path to farming comes from a strong belief in the importance of people having access to healthy food. They’ve chosen to focus their efforts on producing meat instead of vegetables because they believe animals can be raised humanely and happily. On their Parker KS farm, cows are fed only grass; pigs are given a mixture of woods and pasture in large paddocks; and heritage breed turkeys and laying hens are allowed to free range in the pastures all day long.

Grandview Livestock’s Greg and Ann Christiansen got into meat goats when nothing would grow but brush and weeds after having a third drought in five years. In an average year on their Parker KS farm they’ll have more than 600 commercial does kidding, along with raising corn, soybeans, wheat, hay and cattle. They also raise livestock guardian dogs that live with and protect the goats that are on 6-7 different pastures within 20 miles of their home. Known as the Goat Commander, Greg is the author of Raising Meat Goats in a Commercial Operation. In the book he draws on his 14+ years of experience in raising meat goats on a commercial scale to explain the principles of managing meat goats as a viable farm business.

2015 KFU State Convention

about KFU

Kansas Farmers Union is the state’s oldest active general farm organization working to protect and enhance the economic interests and quality of life for family farmers and ranchers and rural communities.

We believe family ownership of farm land is the basis for the world’s most viable system of food and fiber production, and that maintaining this family farm system will preserve our natural and human resources.

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